Monday, 11 October 2010

Bidding War

It sounds that Iran doesn't like the idea of being overtaken by its war-torn neighbor Iraq in terms of oil reserves.

It announced today that it has 150.31 billion barrels of reserves, up from a previous estimate of 138 billion barrels, a week after Iraq announced nearly 24 percent increase to its previous estimates, which stood at 115 billion barrels, to become 143.1 billion barrels.

That's what Maury always tells himself, as he considers his pitiful, um, 'asset'.

Both Iraq and Iran will be poised to exploit the price of oil as it shoots through the roof. These two countries are better served by putting aside their differences and concentrating on domestic development instead of mutual antagonism.

I agree with Maury. We sit atop vast natural resources not only oil, but we have no electricity, safe drinking water, sewage systems, roads, perfect schools and hospitals until the end of the long list. So the real fortune is to have brilliant minds of real statesmen.

Sir, you will never have 'real statesmen' as long as your leaders are guided by outside powers with the vested interests of those outside powers. Those powers will put their own needs before the needs of the Iraqi people, and those leaders will follow the directions of those outsiders. Obviously I'm talking about America and Iran. A case in point is where Iraq recently paid, thanks to Maliki and co., 400 million dollars in "reparations" to Americans who were "taken hostage" in the 1991 crisis. Reparations to American who are quite fine today ... while Iraqis starve on a daily basis. And Iran is not much better.

Bruno is never right about anything. 400 million sounds like a lot of money, but it's chump change compared to the billions the US sinks into Iraq every year. The US spent 50 billion on reconstruction already. Knowing Washington, billions more are sure to flow on an annual basis as long as China will lend us the money.

Maliki is no fool. He's not going to endanger the money train over less than half a billion in claims. Bruno, on the other hand, is the world's biggest fool. He makes Baghdad Bob look like an Einstein.

As far as which method of development is better, I'll take the route the US went any day. Anyone could be a wildcatter. If a man was willing to invest the money, he could lease the land and drill to his heart's content. The US was happy to tax his earnings, along with those he employed. The economy blossomed, and everyone grew richer as a result.

Iraq, like the rest of the Middle East, is a control freak when it comes to oil and gas. It wants all the revenue, with none of the risks. That means jobs for foreignors willing to take those risks, but not for Iraqi's. Iraqi's will stay poor and dependent on the whims of Baghdad. When the oil is gone, the government jobs will be gone as well. And, the economy will never have blossomed in the meantime.

Freedom is more than casting a ballot. It's a whole new way of thinking. Iraq isn't there yet.

[maury] "Freedom is more than casting a ballot. It's a whole new way of thinking. Iraq isn't there yet."

Yet more condescending behaviour by a know-it-all American who sees fit to preach about basic concepts to people that are most likely more intelligent than him.

Do you really think that Iraqis don't grasp the concept of democracy?

The real root of the problem is the fact that thanks to the Americans and Iranians, sectarianism was codified into Iraqi politics (since the CPA) and now Iraqi politicians can't see past issues of sect. Also, there is too little to go around, and fighting for a few crumbs becomes a matter of life or death.

"Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions — involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery — made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program.

Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewelry, or to pay off enormous casino debts.

Some suspects also tried to conceal foreign bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, the investigators said, while in other cases, cash was simply found stacked in home safes."

"Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday. An inspector general's report said the U.S.-led administration that ran Iraq until June 2004 is unable to account for the funds.[...]The money came from revenues from the United Nations' former oil-for-food program, oil sales and seized assets -- all Iraqi money."

“We called it our Berlin Wall,” said Saad Khalef, 41, told The NYT on March 6 story as he surveyed the newly uncovered ground where the walls had stood, as crushed and pale as the skin beneath a bandage. “Now we can breathe easy. Yesterday, I felt a breeze coming through, I swear to God.”The NYT's Anthony Shadid in a piece on Jan. 6, 2011 two days after Muqtada Al-Sadr's return from nearly four-year self-imposed exile in Iraq: In 2004, an American spokesman in Baghdad called Mr. Sadr “a two-bit thug.” On Wednesday, the State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, called him “the leader of an Iraqi political party that won a number of seats in the March 2010 election.”